


John Watson and the Mystery of the Leaky Cauldron

by AcierGlace



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Drinking Games, Gen, Slightly Crack-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-21
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-12-09 02:16:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/768812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AcierGlace/pseuds/AcierGlace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John heads out for a pint and stumbles into a party.</p>
            </blockquote>





	John Watson and the Mystery of the Leaky Cauldron

John grit his teeth and steadfastly refused to let any of the hurt he was feeling leak onto his face. It was his own fault, he supposed, for living with the sociopath, but that didn't mean Sherlock's callous and absent words didn't hurt sometimes. 

It wasn't that John didn't know he cared. Sherlock may not have the same level of concern for the rest of humanity, but he did care that he'd lost the game by letting them die. John half-suspected that Sherlock was stepping up his image of concern if only to prevent situations like this. But Sherlock was only a man, a selfish one at that, and he slipped up occasionally. 

So here John was, scouring London for a remote pub that Sherlock wouldn't just happen to have a connection to. He needed peace of mind, and for that, he needed distance from Sherlock. 

He jolted as his shoulders were pushed by a pair of men wearing a mix of clothes that led him to believe they were either color-blind or fashion-impaired. Or maybe even both. They waved apologies at him as they continued signing a victory song and vanished around the next corner. John hesitated, his internal Sherlock sniping at him to follow, before giving up and trotting after the interesting men. Maybe they knew a good pub.

He stilled when he realized that they were in fact going to a pub, just not one he'd ever seen any adverts for. The Leaky Cauldron sounded more like a chemist club's fantasy bar than a respectable pub. But that didn't stop John from pushing open the door. The atmosphere didn't scream 'dangerous' but it did scream 'unusual.' 

There was a celebration going on. Most of the pub's patrons were singing and toasting, knocking pointed hats and robes off each other in their activities. John sidled around the edge of the crowd who were hoisting some firecracker that kept spitting out red sparks. 

“What's going on?” He asked as soon as he got the bar man's attention. The man just stared at him in disbelief before smiling good-naturedly and clapping his shoulder. 

“I knew you country boys were uninformed but I didn't realize it was this bad!” He waved at the crowd, now singing a tribute so some 'Harry.' John would bet that it was not his sister. “It's the anniversary of You-Know-Who's Fall!”

“Oh right.” He nodded and kept his mouth shut. Best not to just blurt out his ignorance. “Could I get a pink of dark?”

“Right away!” Instantly, there was a foaming mug at his hand, so fast he hadn't even seen the bar man move. He reached for his wallet but was waved off. “It's all on the house tonight! In Honor of Harry Potter!”

“Harry Potter!” The crowd thundered back, everyone of them tossing back a drink and roaring. John followed suit, warmth filling his belly and spreading. He held back the empty mug and stared in surprise. That was delicious. No wonder Harry was an alcoholic if the things she drank tasted like this. 

“What's your name?” The bar man was back, filling his mug before John could blink. He wondered if he wasn't already drunk and hampered visually. 

“John Watson.” He held out his free hand and shook. 

“Tom. Just Tom.” He gestured to the room around him. “I've been owner here since the first War. Never been quite so joyous as these past years. Now that dark times have passed.”

“Yeah.” John furrowed his brow. Something wasn't adding up here. 

“Oi! A toast!” One of the patrons had climbed onto a table, waving his arms for attention. “To Harry Potter! May his wand be as thick as his luck!” Followed by lewd eyebrow and tongue waggling and a hand motion that made even John blush.

Roaring laughter broke out as they echoed the toast back. John's eyebrows were up near his hairline. Did all gay chemists have Anniversary parties for the War? If so, he was clearly missing out. 

“Time for the Games!” Several voices began to chant, the red sparks ending. John stood up from his seat, legs wobbling under him as he rose. Huh. He didn't think he'd had that much to drink. “Tom! Get the firewhiskey!”

“Alright! Alright!” Tom waved them back, twenty bottles of whiskey appearing on the counter around him. “Pass them round!”

A bottle was shoved in John's hand, a glass into the other. He watched in bemusement as everyone formed a circle, each with their own bottle or splitting one. 

“Alright! Rules of the Game! Rule One! Everyone drinks!” The man leading them filled his glass and held it up to present. “Rule Two! One pair at a time! Rule Three! Everyone drinks!” 

“You said that one already!” Someone shouted in the ensuing laughter. John was busy staring at the label of the whiskey, fairly certain the letters on the bottle were billowing like tongues of flame. 

“Then you're the first challenger!” Two men entered the middle of the circle and sat in the two stools that had been erected. “Count us down!”

“Three!” 

“Two!”

“One!” 

“Expelliarmus!” The man nearest to John toppled over as they brandished the glasses of whiskey, which by all rights should have spilled as they went but actually stayed still in the glass, and landed on the ground with a thunk. The crowd jeered as the loser climbed to his feet and downed the shot, steam, actual honest steam, shooting out of his ears as he did. 

“Next challenger!” 

It continued like this for some time until John was finally in the center, drunken hands helping him onto the stool and filling his glass. The combatants were both steadily losing as the word became harder and harder to pronounce correctly. John gave several admirable attempts, even knocking over three men during his turn before consistently losing every round after. 

The crowd was well into the last legs of the game when purple sparks went up next. 

“New game!”

The crowd parted as Tom placed a new stool and a hat in the center of the group. 

“Rules!” The man who had introduced the first game was in the middle, directing the crowd yet again. “Hat goes on and when the answer is called, you take a drink! Red glass for Gryffindor!” 

“Fireball Highball!”

“Blue glass for Ravenclaw!”

“Mermaid Mixer!”

“Yellow glass for Hufflepuff!”

“Niffler's Gold!”

“And green glass for Slytherin!” Hisses went around and a green glass was placed with the rest of the them. It was frothing and steam wafted from the rim of the glass.

“It's Basilisk's Poison for the unlucky Slytherin among us!”

“Line up and take your turn fast or you're the snake!” The crowd hustled and pushed, John being swept into yet another drinking game. Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were being shouted, the crowd taking shots from the glasses with heady relief. John would have had a bad feeling, but whatever that whiskey was had burned his throat and for a second when he coughed, he could have sworn he'd seen flames. John was on the stool, eyes covered by the hat before he could even recover.

“Slytherin!” The crowd went silent as someone pulled the hat off him before they began to chant the word. The green glass was reverently brought over to John, held out to him.

“We've got our Slytherin boys!” John eyed the glass in his hands dubiously. The chanting was beginning to give him a headache, and doing what the crowd wanted seemed the best way to appease the masses into leaving him be. 

John steeled his stomach and kicked back the glass in one go. It took a second for him to register taste, but when it did, he grimaced as he washed the black licorice and cherry flavor away with whatever they handed him next. 

“Last game of the night!” The first man had settled his arm around John's shoulders, and leveled him up to his feet. “Now that we've got our Slytherin, we need an adversary!” 

“Let Oliver go!” The crowd was shoving one of the dark-haired men forward, the man laughing and wobbling as he went. 

“Get him Oliver!” 

“Rules!” The first man boomed in John's ears. “First man to finish the Kiss gets the AK! If you give up before the Kiss is gone or don't finish first, you will be left in the Alley on display!” 

“Starkers! Don't forget you'll be starkers!” 

“That'll make the Aurors' day!” 

“Better not lose, Ollie!”

John was feeling terribly out of his depth, but they had steered him and Oliver to a table and dumped them in chairs. Tom was carrying a huge tray over to them. Two tall glasses filled with what had to be the darkest liquor John had ever seen were placed in the middle and a short acid green shot glass was set between them. Oliver looked about how John felt but reached out gamely and shook his hand.

“No hard feelings when you lose, aye?” 

John frowned, teetering in his chair as he shook the man's hand. 

“No hard feelings when you do.” 

He wasn't about to back away from a challenge now. Not when for a minute it looked like there were three of the man and each one had a smarmy look on his face. Reminded John of Sherlock's affronted and pouty scowl. Which John was trying to forget about. 

“Ready, challengers!” The crowd chanted down again. “Go!”

John grabbed the glass and began to chug it down. It was syrupy and sweet, but there was a bitter almost harsh under-flavor. John closed his eyes as he concentrated as best he could with what little senses he had left. The drink reminded John of how tears tasted, how sweat tasted when lapped up from the hollows of gasping throats. Bitter but tantalizing. Sharp but smooth enough to go down easy if you relaxed just right. Like listening to Sherlock deduce and then asking stupid, obvious questions that anyone with an empathetic range wouldn't bother with. 

Cheering vaguely registered in John's mind, just as the hand clapping his shoulder finally dislodged the empty glass from his hand. He stared at the fallen glass and then over at Oliver, who still had more than a third left to go. The words around him were hazy, sharp sounds at best, but when someone put the shot glass into his hand, John just followed through the motion and kicked that back as well.

He tasted spring rain, limes, mint, and something so sweet and fizzy, he barely set the glass down before it spilled over through him and he blacked out. 

-X-

John came awake slowly. His head was pounding, his vision blurry, and he had more aches than he had places. He was in an unfamiliar bed, alone, and lacking his shoes. He pushed himself upright and waited until his stomach settled before glancing about the room for details. 

There was a glass of water and another darker bottle on the bedside table. He grabbed the water first, gulping it fast. He set it down and noticed the note left by the other bottle. “For the hangover” was all it said, but John was willing to try anything, even what looked like a home brew, instead of allowing this pain to continue. Whatever was in that bottle was the most unpleasant thing John had ever tasted, including the various alcoholic drinks he'd had last night.

He found his shoes under the bed and his coat on the chair. At least someone had made sure he was partially comfortable before leaving him.

He left the room and found stairs leading back to the pub he'd wound up last night. Whatever they'd left for his hangover was doing marvels for his balance and headache. Almost like it wasn't even there. 

“Oi, John! Nice to see you up finally.” Tom from behind the bar waved him over. The rest of the bar glanced up at him, a few grinning and shouting their congratulations. 

“Sorry about that.” He gave his best placating smile, but was ignored in favor of the newspaper. John glanced down and then stared as the photo on the front page moved. Oliver from last night was buck naked, a large mark that looked like a lazy lightning bolt drawn on his chest, and strapped to the doors of a shop. Two men in robes were trying to untangle him while a third was ushering a few unidentifiable people out of the way. It kept resetting to the struggling. 

“Lucky you didn't make the papers, hm?” Tom glanced at what he was reading and set it aside. “Not that he'll get into much trouble. Ministry has better things to handle than drunken penalty games.”

“Right.” John felt vaguely lost. Tom noticed.

“Don't worry about the room. Most here had to recover or lose parts of themselves along the way home.” Tom chuckled and glanced down at his watch. “It's going on half five, though.”

John's mouth dropped open. He'd left yesterday at half six. Nearly a full day absent with no word or warning that he was going anywhere. Oh God. He concluded that the fact that Sherlock was absent was either that he was sulking and ignoring John in revenge, had unearthed his skull and replaced John out of spite, or was harassing the MET now that John wasn't there to act as negotiator.

“Guess I'll be off.”

“Pleasure to meet you, John Watson. Hope we'll be seeing you again.” Tom called cheerfully as John left. He waved back, trying to find his mobile and realizing that it wasn't on him. He did unearth enough money to get a cab back to the flat, though.

He hailed the first one he saw and slumped in exhaustion after giving the driver his address. 

Baker Street appeared to be under siege, though John half hoped it wasn't because of Sherlock. Oh, he'd be involved somehow, but John hoped Sherlock hadn't blown something up in a fit of irrational, moody temper, or boredom as he liked to call it, that led to things like shooting the wall and harassing press conferences. 

“You can just stop here.” John said once it was clear there was no way to enter the street around the police cars. He handed over the money and headed for the flat. There were quite a few police cars but not very many actual police. Hm. 

John headed upstairs once he got inside, stilling in the doorway as he took in the scene. Sherlock had a map of London tacked to the wall, large areas were marked out in a clockwise formation, and the police missing from their cars were arranged in a half-circle around it, Sherlock pointing at the unmarked sections of the map. 

His entrance appeared to have disrupted a case. 

“Sorry. Did you finish that kidnapping case then? Or is this related?” John stepped around the edge, heading for the kitchen. It was oddly still and quiet in the living room. “Sherlock? Do you want some tea, or is this another instance of being too busy for nourishment?”

“Where were you?” Sherlock was in the kitchen, at his back and tugging him about with a firm hand. John frowned a bit and set the kettle back down, glancing up at Sherlock and then at the suddenly loud police.

“The rest of you can go; I'll stay here to finish.” Lestrade waved them off, turning back to the map and pulling out the blue lines. 

“Are you supposed to be doing that? Did you solve the case, Sherlock?” John wasn't sure Lestrade was allowed to play with the Wall. Sherlock was very possessive of his things.

“Where were you, John?” Sherlock sounded slightly angry. Odd.

“For a pint. Didn't mean to stay away for so long. Got caught up in some Anniversary chemist party, or something. Just got up about forty minutes ago or so.”

“I checked every pub, alehouse, restaurant, bar, and club in the entire city and you were not at a single one of them. Not even my network had seen you. Your mobile was here. Not a single friend in your contact list knew where you were, and it was very unlikely that you would enter a stranger's home for copulation in such a limited amount of time. I could not find you. In London.”

John stilled. Oh. That's what had him worked up. Sherlock knew London as well as John knew the flat, as well as people knew their bodies. 

“As the kidnapping case has involved victims matching you in some form, male, single, medical professional, older than 25 but younger than 60, military service background, it would not be difficult to imagine yet another kidnapping of my blogger.”

John frowned harder. “I was just at a pub, Sherlock. I thought I had said as much when I left.”

“Your pub calls don't usually take 24 hours.” Sherlock's voice was sharp and brittle, striving hard to be as emotionless as he pretended to be. 

“I'm sorry.” He said rather helplessly. He glanced back at Lestrade and placed some pieces together. “That's what the meeting was then? You'd thought I was kidnapped?”

“As we've already established.” Sherlock huffed off, back into the living room to settle petulantly on the couch. 

“Called us up as soon as it was clear you were missing.” Lestrade was being oddly kind and calm about the whole thing. John had left the kitchen after Sherlock but hovered uncomfortably near his chair. At Lestrade's voice he'd stared at the detective and tried to look as abashed as possible.

“Sorry.” He offered again. 

“Don't worry about it.” Lestrade clapped his shoulder as he left. “We'll have to revise our search patterns since it's clear you weren't the next victim. Have Sherlock notify us if he figures anything else out, alright?”

“Course.” John nodded as he left, footsteps heavy down the stairs. He stared at Sherlock's uncomfortable slouch and tight shoulders. He hesitated before sitting at the man's side and resting a hand gently on his left forearm. “I was just at the pub. Needed to cool down. They were having some party with these weird drinking games and I got caught up in it. Slept off the hangover then came straight here after I woke up.”

“Drinking games?” Sherlock echoed, the nuances thick in his tone and John was smart enough to catch all of the disapproving monologue he heard in the two words. 

“It was a celebration of some kind. Something about the end of the War and a Harry Potter.” John squeezed Sherlock's arm and then dropped it to rise. “What about that tea then?”

“Harry Potter?” Sherlock frowned hard.

“Got me.” John shrugged and set the kettle on. “I think he's the head of their little group or something. Gay chemist figurehead. Didn't really get the full story. The bar was good, though. I think you'd actually like it.”

Sherlock's face showed how likely he believed that, but John just smiled good-naturedly.

**Author's Note:**

> Drabble - no planned sequel


End file.
